Suns out. A fiver in. Beer in hand on the touch line. A good fair game. I'm thinking this is what football should be about, enjoyable and inexpensive, in a ramshackle ground full of character, a million miles (and pounds) away from the plush all-seaters at the top of the pyramid.
Pools are playing a strong side and Spenny realise fairly early on that they're in for an uncomfortable afternoon and resort to tough late challenges. Pools left winger cops a fair few kicks but United remain unflustered by shifting attention to the right, and this tactic pays dividends when a floating ball in from the RHS is met by last seasons top scorer Scotty Fenwick precision head. One nil.
Spenny's unit of a goalkeeper, a typical beefy non league custodian, makes a couple of excellent saves, one from a cross-come shot from the right wing and a solid free kick into the top corner. Pools should be a few up but the whistle blows for HT, leading to another age old tradition lost from the modern game - fans changing ends. We leave the Football League standard covered terrace behind the goal and perch on the more modest pavement and black and white painted fence surroundings behind the other.
Time for a thumb through the programme. The editor must be a Poolie on the quiet as an extensive proportion of the well made two quid issue is devoted to Hartlepool - a full sixteen pages devoted to Pools including an expansive club history and plenty detail on the pen pics. And then there's a further two pages on Pools programmes from yesteryears. Nice.
It's blustery in the second half and Pools are kicking up hill on the lopsided pitch so the fluidity of the movement is halted. Plus there's been a full roster change with all starting eleven subbed after 45 mins. The second string huff and puff but not as strongly as the cross field gusts, so have to rely on half chances. Trialist Fergus Bell takes on of these to extend Pools lead.
With the game all but won Pools compete at a leisurely pace, continuing to attack down the right hand side with decent success. Young hopeful Connor Smith takes one chance coming in from said side and coolly slots into the corner. Towards the end new signing Jake Carroll, a Huddersfield Town left back, cuts in and places one into the net. Four nil.
A resounding pre-season success for Pools, the same result as the previous visit and I'm kicking myself for not backing it (16/1 on Bet365). However a check of the other 5pm finishes see that Preston, Rotherham, Wigan and Bournemouth all won, meaning my daft pre-season two quid fourfold has landed me twenty quid. I love coming to Spennymoor.
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